Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: The World Fantasy Award Finalists Edition....Featuring Me

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

Well I got a surprise yesterday when my editor at Saga Press, Joe Monti called me to let me know that my book was nominated for a 2026 World Fantasy Award.  To say I was surprised would be an understatement. As I told Joe, I didn't think they gave awards for nonfiction. They don't, he told me, but they have one category, "Special Award – Professional" where they can nominate anything they want.

I also want to give a shout out to everyone at Saga because while I was on the phone with Joe, people were coming by to congratulate me over his phone and then the joy in the email chain with the official announcement that Joe was sharing with me and the team....it was wonderful! They work so hard for their authors and are proud of all of us. 

Okay, enough about me, let's talk about the award in general. The World Fantasy Awards are given each year at the World Fantasy Convention for books in the Fantasy and Horror genres. From their site:

A highlight of the annual convention is a banquet and ceremony announcing the recipients of that year’s World Fantasy Awards. The finalists and winners are selected each year by a jury of judges and the members of the current and previous two years’ conventions. For details on submitting material to be considered for the current year’s awards, see this page.  

You can click here for this year's ballot or see the full list below. And you can use the Locus Magazine award database for all past nominees and winners.

Use this award list AND the jurors to help your speculative fiction readers, to make displays, give suggestions, and develop your collections.

2026 World Fantasy Awards Final Ballot

Jurors:

• Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
• Tamsyn Muir
• Madeleine E. Robins
• Richard Thomas
• Ann VanderMeer

Novel

• Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill (Tachyon Publications)
• Once Was Willem by M. R. Carey (Orbit/Orbit UK)
• The Secret Market of the Dead by Giovanni De Feo (Saga Press)
• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Tor Books/Tor UK)
• The Adventures of Mary Darling by Pat Murphy (Tachyon Publications)

Long Fiction

• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom/Arcadia)
• “The Secret Diary of Mina Harker” by Theodora Goss (Letters from an Imaginary Country)
• “Uncertain Sons” by Thomas Ha (Uncertain Sons and Other Stories)
• The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella (Lethe Press)
• “The Spotter” by Josh Malerman (You, Human: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction, Vol. 2)
• Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce (Tordotcom)
• A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

Short Fiction

• “The Hungry Mouth at the Edge of Space and the Goddess Knitting at Home” by Renan Bernardo (Reactor, Aug. 27, 2025)
• “In My Country” by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld magazine #223, April 2025)
• “10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills (Uncannymagazine #63, March-April 2025)
• “St. Dymphna’s School for Borderland Girls” by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece (Weird HorrorIssue 10, Spring 2025)
• “Unfinished Architectures of the Human-Fae War” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Uncannymagazine #64, May-June 2025)

Anthology

• Night & Day edited by Ellen Datlow (Saga Press)
• Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology edited by Julie C. Day with Carina Bissett & Craig Laurance Gidney (Essential Dreams)
• The Best Weird Fiction of the Year: Volume 1 edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Press)
• Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume Three edited by Stephen Kotowych (Ansible Press)
• Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror edited by Hollie Starling (Chatto & Windus)

Collection

• Letters from an Imaginary Country by Theodora Goss (Tachyon Publications)
• Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (Undertow Publications)
• The Essential Patricia A. McKillip by Patricia A. McKillip (Tachyon Publications)
• The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories by Salman Rushdie (Random House/Jonathan Cape)
• Black Hole Heart and Other Stories by K. A. Teryna, translated by Alex Shvartsman (Fairwood Press)

Artist

• Galen Dara
• Kathleen Jennings
• Daniele Serra
Rachel Smythe
• Charles Vess

Special Award – Professional

• Clive Bloom, for London Uncanny: A Gothic Guide to the Capital in Weird History and Fiction (Bloomsbury Academic)
• Blumhouse and Dave Schilling, for Horror’s New Wave: 15 Years of Blumhouse (Simon & Schuster/Simon Element)
• Jaymee Goh, Jill Roberts, and Jacob Weisman, for Tachyon Publications
• Tim Lucas, for Succubus (Necronomicon) (PS Publishing/Electric Dreamhouse)
• Becky Siegel Spratford, for Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature (Saga Press)
• Richard Wolinsky, for Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends (Tachyon Publications)

Special Award – Non-Professional

• Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine
• Andy Cox, for Remains magazine
• Patrick Swenson, for Fairwood Press and for the Rainforest Writers Village Retreat
• Elise C. Tobler, for The Deadlands magazine
• Wendy Wagner, for Nightmare magazine

What I'm Reading: Audiobook Reviews Round-Up

I talk about this in my training programs, but don't say it enough here, because I read and review books for my job it is not only hard to make time to read for fun, but also, and this is even more difficult, it is very hard to train my brain to just sit back and enjoy a story and not try to critique it as a professional reviewer.

Over the years I have worked very hard to figure out how to still enjoy reading. I have chronicled that journey for years through my Reading Resolutions post. If you want to read those, check out my first 2 posts of every year my using the drop down menus in the right gutter toward the bottom of every page.

But for those who want the short version, what I have learned is, if I listen to the books I want to read for fun my brain understands this. It doesn't try to be a critic. Reading with my ears is the trick my brain needs to enjoy a leisure read.

After I finish these audiobooks, I take notes in Goodreads. I do not write long formal reviews, but I do assign these titles 3 words. 

Today, I want to catch up with four audiobooks I have enjoyed recently by making them searchable here on the blog. I have listed them in the order in which I read them.

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
• Three Words That Describe This Book: Trad Wife Trope, satire, thriller frame
• We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune
• Three Words That Describe This Book: end of the world, character centered, heartbreakingly beautiful
• Vigil by George Saunders
• Three Words That Describe This Book: full cast audio, gripping, contemplation of what it means to live a life
  
• The Ending Writes Itself by Evelyn Clarke
• Three Words That Describe This Book: book about publishing industry, intricately plotted mystery, multiple points of view

Conversation Starter To Display Monthly Question: What Is the Book You Recommend to Everyone You Know

This is part of a monthly series of conversation starters which can be made into evergreen displays that I first proposed here (with 12 examples that could last you full a year). You can expect a new conversation starter on the first week day of a new month. Use the newest one for the next month, or access the long backlist of these ideas anytime by using this link. 

Back in June, I wrote about how to use conversation starters to create evergreen displays (see link above), and in that post I promised to give you one conversation starter a month at the start of each month. I also make it clear in that post that these displays can be small. 3-5 books that you keep rotating. You can even use this link to make it into a scavenger hunt of small displays all over the library.

Here is the first of those first of the month displays themes, and it is one I use in every training program I offer: What is a book you recommend to everyone you know?

This is a question that everyone who is a reader can answer quickly; much more quickly than when you ask people to share a favorite book or the last goo book they read. This is a question that has an immediate and visceral response. It is also a question that changes. I you ask someone this question today, you wil get a few titles, but then ask them 6 months later and you will have a few more.

This makes the question-- and the answers-- evergreen by default. It is also a question that is not tied to any one section of the library-- any genre, format, fiction or nonfiction, kids books, adult books, it is all game with this open ended question.

Start by asking staff this question-- at the very least. Do it through an electronic form so that the answers get filed into a spreadsheet. You can also use resources like this one from Goodreads.

That link will allow you to get the display up immediately, while you wait for staff to reply. 

The title of this display is the question itself: What is a book you recommend to everyone you know?

Why? Because this is interactive. Your display is a conversation. It will draw patrons toward it, their interest piqued. You are asking them a question and presenting some answers, but they will have their own and they will want to tell you!!!

Now, you can follow my more elaborate suggestion on how to ask every patron to help answer this question and add titles to your spreadsheet of options, OR you can start smaller. Put up a white board or bulletin board near the display and allow people to add titles. You can pull them as needed or just leave them there, answers to your question, a way to SHOW your community that you care about their answers. You should be adding these to the spreadsheet overtime as well.

That spreadsheet is key here because it is a way for the library to KNOW what books matter to their patrons. Circulation statistics just show us what checks out. It doesn't tell us if they were enjoyed, let alone a book so treasured the patron recommends it to everyone they know. Asking this question makes an excellent, interactive, and, quite frankly, easy display, BUT it also gives us valuable collection development data.

First, if the books people are recommending to answer this question and their circ stats are not great, this lets us know that the book should stay in our collection. It alerts us that it is a patron fav and we now know to get it on display where another reader will almost certainly give it a try (with a title of a display like that, it is sure to circ now)

Second, this conversation starter allows us to see what books matter to our readers and we can pass that information on to those who buy the books for our collections so that they can look for similar titles. As someone who bought for the fiction collection, I would have loved to have this information. I knew my key patrons and bought books I knew they would like, but this question would have reach more people. Many who never stop to talk to use will answer. You will get a much wider view of the books your readers love and crave. That data is collection development gold!

You can search out readalikes that you have, and add more. All of that will lead to small displays, ones you can title, "So you recommend ..... to everyone you know? Now try this." Those can be online and in small spaces. 

You are asking a question, getting responses to fill a display, gathering valuable collection development data, and then creating more displays. All by asking one question: What is a book you recommend to everyone you know?

You have nothing to lose here. You and your patrons win the second you ask the question.

Back next month with anther question.

New Book on Gen Z Reading Habits-- Free Download Through 8/6

Portland State University researchers Kathi Inman Berens and Rachel Noorda have a new book from Cambridge University Press entitled, How Gen Z Discover and Consume Books. It is free to download here but only through August 6th!

From the summary:

This Element examines book consumption practices of Gen Z (born 1997–2012), a generation whose formative years coincided with the internet, smartphones, and social media-digital ecosystems that transformed book discovery, consumption, and social identification. Drawing on two nationally representative US surveys (2025, n=2000; 2022, n=2075), the authors investigate paradoxical tensions in Gen Z reading: preference for print despite reliance on digital discovery mechanisms, dissonance between reader identity and actual behaviors, and evolving attitudes toward piracy and AI. The analysis reveals how Gen Z's reading practices exist within multimodal media environments with increasingly permeable format boundaries. This generation navigates a complex landscape spanning traditional bookstores to digital-only providers, where discovery is shaped by algorithms, peer influence, cross-media storytelling, and differential trust in information sources. These findings have significant implications for publishers, educators, and cultural institutions engaging young readers in fragmented media environments.

I know asking you to read an entire book on this topic is a big ask, but I do have a compromise courtesy of the Book Riot Podcast where Rebecca sat down with the authors to discuss their research and findings. Click here to listen for free.

Also here is the Book Riot quick summary to go with the podcast:

The kids are all right, according to Drs. Rachel Noorda and Kathi Inman Berens, authors of a new book about Gen Z’s reading habits.

In surveys specifically constructed to capture the reading habits of the first generation of digital natives, they found:

• More than 65% of Gen Z people identify as readers, a 15% increase between 2022 and 2025.
• Visits to physical bookstores tripled between 2022 and 2025 as Gen Z folks sought safe “third spaces” outside of home and school.
• Gen Z reported buying a median of 107 books per year and reading 58 print books per year.
• Librarians are gaining influence as trusted sources of book recommendations, as Gen Z’s interest in social media influencers and talent wanes.

🎧 Get more data from our conversation with the researchers, and download their book for free from Cambridge University Press through August 6.

Go download the book NOW so you don't miss your chance. You can always read it later, but only if you download it before August 6th.

I have more posts about generational reading behavior for you to peruse when you want at this link as well.

Updated Horror RA Program for 2026 and my 2026 Appearance Schedule Page is Now Live

Believe it or not, but I am in full Spooky Season prep mode even though it is still July. Besides the Horror Genre Preview that went live earlier this month, I also have my annual update to my program-- Horror Readers Advisory: How to Help Your Scariest Patrons.

The first time I am giving this talk is for PCI for a national audience-- some live, some on demand. You can access the slides for yourself here or at the end of this post.

This presentation is updated every year around this time. It is THE standard for everything you need to know about Horror from appeal to themes, how to handle the Horror RA conversation, what titles you need to know about. And all of this is presented so that you can use the information to serve your patrons whether you are a hard core horror fan, a complete fraidy cat, or anything in between.

This means everyone reading this should be looking at these slides now, before you are slammed with more Horror readers. Remember, horror is hot right now and people always want to give it a try in October, even those who have never read it. These slides can help you help them and every level of Horror reader.

FYI, you can always find my upcoming and immediately past programs and RA training appearances on this page, always in the right gutter BELOW the RA for All logo. That page lists my fees, my most popular programs and their descriptions, links to slides, and a direct link to my book specific appearance page.

I have also set up the 2026 Fall WHY I LOVE HORROR appearance page, beginning with my visit to Gibson's Books in 2 days. Click here for that page. You can also find it in the right gutter ABOVE the RA for All Logo. There is already a lot there and I am confirming more every day.

And don't forget, I do a #HorrorForLibrraies giveaway every Thursday. And today, it is a big one-- up coming titles from Eric LaRocca and Alma Katsu; two titles for 1 winner! Click here for details on the titles and how to enter. Even if you aren't a huge horror fan, someone at your library is. These are ARCs so you cannot add them to your collections after staff read them, but you can use them for Horror themed giveaways of your own.

As August approaches (in 2 more days), I am here to help you be ready for Spooky Season. Those slides are filled with lists, links, and more. Get ready NOW. 

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Booker Prize Longlist Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.  

The Booker Prize Longlist was recently announced. What is the Booker Prize? From their About Page:

The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades

Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. It is a prize that transforms the winner’s career. 

Go to this page, helpfully titled, "Everything you need to know about the Booker Prize 2026 longlist." The page itself is a gold mine of a resource to help readers. It had details about every book, information about the judges. And on the prize's main page, there are even more articles about this year's longlist. I will link to some of the article below.

But even with the regular. display, backlist, and collection development advice I give for every award (access above), The Book Prize is an award you need to know about for a variety of reasons, reasons which give you even more options to serve your patrons.

First, these books are always among the top books written in English every year, which means this year and past year's lists make for reliable suggestions to your curious readers. The backlist is also very easy to access in two different ways. The first is a page here where you can use drop down menus to do so deep dive searching and/or scroll under those drop downs to see the announcements for each year in reverse chronological order. The second is a page here with a list of each year (reverse chronological order) of every title beginning with the winner and then listing all of the longlist titles and the titles are linked to get even more information about them.

Second, these titles (2026 or any year in the recent past) tend to be on the "readable side." What do I mean with that? What I mean is that they tend to pick excellent titles of high literary merit that are readable for a general adult audience. These are critically acclaimed, literary fiction titles that you can give out to a wide swath of readers with confidence. 

Third, the Booker Prize has a history of identifying authors worth you time early in their careers, sometimes earlier than they get singled out for other major awards. These are authors worth having on yourself and suggesting, but you (and your readers) may not have them on their radar yet. 

Fourth, this award list serves as a readalike for itself. Not all awards can do this, but I have used this award list as a suggestion engine for readers who have enjoyed any book that has appeared on the longlists. In fact, back in the early days of the 2000s, I offered a "Holds Without Hassle" program at my library, and not only did we allow them to pick authors for that list, but we also had a few awards they could select. This award (called the Man Booked back in the day) was one of the most popular choices. People wanted the winner put on automatic hold and then after reading it, we helped them find the other nominated titles. I have seen this work in action, even with the books being about widely different topics and from a range of authors.  

Fifth, and this is how my readers first found out about this award in the first place, these titles make excellent book discussion choices. There is a very helpful Booker Library, where you can find books by author, title, or even pick a prize year. And to make it even easier for you, they have Reading Guides designed specifically for libraries. Using the backlist from 2-5 years ago is a great resource for winning discussion titles.

And finally, the judges. I have talked about this before, but look at that list of judges from this year or past years. (Click on the post for each year on that page and scroll down to read about the judges.) Take this year for example. The judges themselves are excellent options for displays, suggestions, and purchase if you don't own their books. You can also use the judges list as one of my 5 Resources You Cannot Live Without-- Author Recs of Other Authors. A couple years ago year, I wrote about how that works in relation to the NYT Best Books of the Century discussion.

I am sure there are even more reasons why this award is a great resource for you to help your readers. Click through for all of the details and information and decide how you can best use this list for your library. The site is really a treasure trove of resources, suggestions, and lists all year long. 

I will end this post with  the most basic info-- the titles on the long list and the summary by the jurors about the list as a whole. All from this page:

The Booker Prize 2026 longlist has now been announced – a selection of 13 superb works of long-form fiction, chosen from 163 titles written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026.   

As Mary Beard, Chair of this year’s judges, says: ‘Great books have never been written to a single formula. We are confident that our longlist of books has something for everyone. There’s the funny and the unsettling (and in some cases the funny and unsettling); there’s dystopian fantasy and domestic drama; there’s the gritty and the magically mysterious; there are some that will please and some that may shock.’

The 13 nominated books, and their UK publishers, are:  

• The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis (Chatto & Windus) 

• Switzy by Emma Cline (Chatto & Windus) 

• Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman (Fitzcarraldo Editions) 

• The End of Everything by M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail) 

• The Disappearers by Marlon James (Hamish Hamilton) 

• Black Bag by Luke Kennard (John Murray) 

• The Renovation by Kenan Orhan (Hamish Hamilton) 

• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry (Granta) 

• The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley (Picador)   

• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking)  

• John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador) 

• All Them Dogs by Djamel White (John Murray) 

• The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams (4th Estate)

Bookstore Romance Day is Coming (8/15) and Libraries Need to Be Ready

Bookstore Romance Day is August 15th and Libraries not only need to be ready to help promote Romance over the next few weeks, but you should also be reaching out to your local bookstores (whether they are Romance specific or general because all bookstore have Romance) to see if you can help them out with promotion or even partner with them for events.

Click here for more information about Bookstore Romance Day.

They are hosting virtual panels and even have access to past panels. You should be sharing their links on your socials and websites from 8/1 through 8/15 for sure.

At the very least all of you need to be aware that the Bookstore Romance people are doing a big media blitz on and around this date, so that means, you should be brushing up on your Romance RA and putting up displays. People will be hearing about Romance more, even those who don't normally read it. If people walk into the library and see Romance on display, they will think you are reading their minds. And that is when we are really winning.

Libraries are not the only ones getting ready for Bookstore Romance  Day. In preparation for Bookstore Romance Day, PW had this article about how Romance Book Stores are surging across American right now. And Jessica Pryde, librarian and author of Black Love Matters, had this great Brief History of Black Romance in the 2020s in Book Riot.

Speaking of Book Riot, they always cover Romance-- all year long. You can go directly to that section of the site with this link. They do a great job of covering whatever the latest trend is and offer reading lists for you to have titles ready for your patrons ASAP.

And of course for all your general RA Romance needs, keep Smart Bitches, Trashy Books bookmarked and ready, especially their book finder. 

Finally, here is the direct link to the Reddit Romance Books landing page. Real readers talking about the books they love and suggesting more. This is particularly helpful when a trends seems to pop up out of nowhere. By the time you hear about it, I can assure you, the r/RomanceBooks people are already on the case.

Reminder, every single one of the resources I am suggesting are guaranteed to be 100% human created. Do not just google romance lists and think what you find is okay, even if made by a library. The worst thing you can do as a library worker here is offer up a list that AI made that includes titles that do not exist.